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30 October 2014

"THE truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run,” wrote the late Ben Bradlee, editor of The Washington Post whose exposé of the Watergate scandal led to a president’s resignation. Pakistani state and society have to face the truth that the hydra-headed monster of militancy has permeated every institutional, social and political portal of power, and the war against it cannot be won through military means alone.

As illustrated so vividly in Quetta in recent days, sectarian terrorists, political insurgents and regional purveyors of violence are fully exploiting the fault lines that the state machinery has failed to address through a comprehensive national security policy.

How do we get out of the mess we have created on account of faulty and unwise state policies pursued for over three decades? What use is an unimplemented and ownership-deficient National Internal Secu­rity Policy (NISP) that was unveiled with such fanfare by the interior ministry earlier this year? A headless National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) with an ineffective legal and organisational framework reflects policy paralysis resulting from turf battles within the government’s civilian and military components.

It is time we put our house in order. The prime minister has to take some quick and tough decisions to galvanise the state apparatus to combat the scourge of militancy.

The first and foremost task is to bring all the federal and provincial governments as well as the military and civilian security agencies on the same page against the mortal threat posed by the militants. The National Security Committee (NSC) should come up with a policy that unequivocally declares that no militant organisation will have the covert support of the government and its agencies. The state should completely dissociate itself from the proxies created in the past.

Second, the prime minister should appoint a professional internal security adviser to imple­ment NISP and coordinate with all the federal and provincial stakeholders as well as agencies dealing with terrorism and militancy.

Third, Nacta has proved a non-starter with the government unable to find a suitable serving BS-22 police officer as its head and the issue of placing the authority under the prime minister or interior minister still unresolved. Setting up a new organisation will take time. However, the NSC should constitute a national intelligence directorate under the internal security adviser for strea­m­lining intelligence gathering and sharing to enable effective anti-terrorism operations.

The ISI should deal with militants with external links and agendas, including those operating from Fata. The ISI’s counter terrorism wing should be given legal protection under the Protection of Pakistan Act to formally detain and interrogate TTP and foreign-linked militants. The Intelligence Bureau and police, including crime investigation departments, should focus exclusively on sectarian terrorism.

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) and other banned groups will continue to flourish if the activities of their patrons and facilitators are not curbed and their movements not curtailed under the Anti- Terrorism Act.

Moreover, the activists and criminal elements associated with them are known to local police; they should be detained and interrogated by joint investigation teams in a countrywide crackdown.

Fourth, religious extremism can only be curbed through zero tolerance against hate speech. The state has looked the other way for far too long. The virulent mullah-militant combine has done irreparable damage to tolerance in our society. The provincial special branches and local police should monitor and regulate the use of loudspeakers in mosques and madressahs and keep an eye on wall chalking as well as printed material aimed at creating sectarian trouble.

British soldiers (left) and US Marines lower the Union Jack and the NATO flag during a handover ceremony at Lashkar Gah in Afghanistan's Helmand province on October 26. AFP

ON Sunday at a ceremony - not announced in advance for fear of an attack - Britain and the United States handed over to the Afghan government and its security forces two major and adjacent military bases in Helmand province of the country which has seen the worst of fighting during the 13 years of war and where the rebellious Taliban are still in a strong position. Between them the US base named Leatherneck and the British one called Camp Bastion formed the international coalition's regional headquarters and housed 40,000 military personnel and civilian contractors all of whom were flown back home by Monday evening. For Britain it was the end of its combat role in Afghanistan. The British Defence Secretary used the occasion to announce that no British troops would be sent back to Afghanistan ever. For America, the combat role will end in two months. But, under the Afghanistan-US Defence Security Agreement (DSA), around 10,000 American troops will remain in the war-ravaged country up to the end of 2016.

The departing international coalition seems encouraged because it sees the formation of a government of national unity in Afghanistan - after a hotly disputed election -- as a good augury. That would surely so if it lasts. Many are doubtful if it can because the formation of the united government is less voluntary and more America-brokered. President Ashraf Ghani lived in America and worked for the World Bank. His rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has been made the CEO for which there is no provision in the Afghan constitution. Many of his strong supporters, belonging to ethnicities other than Pushtoon, are opposed to this arrangement. Should it break down, Afghanistan would return to armed conflict among warlords. But let us hope that this danger would be averted. But there will still be several other challenges.

For one thing, the Afghan National Army - which, along with the police - numbers 3,50,000, is American-trained, like the Iraqi Army that has virtually collapsed. Could the ANA meet the same fate, especially because it does not have air cover, and is unlikely to get it? Its other equipment is also inadequate. The international community has therefore to do something to ensure the safety of post-US Afghanistan. The Afghan economy is in bad shape. According to the World Bank, the rate of growth of the Afghan GDP plummeted from 14. 4 per cent in 2012 to 3.1 per cent in 2013 and is likely to be 3.5 per cent this year. No wonder President Ghani has rushed to a three-day visit to China where he will meet his opposite number, Xi Jinping, signalling the pivotal role he expects Beijing to play not only in economic reconstruction of Afghanistan but also in a strategic foreign policy aimed at building peace in a region torn by war and conflict for three decades. China does have a stake in peace and stability in Afghanistan where it owns one of the biggest copper mines in the world and is waiting to start operating it. Also Beijing knows that the rebels in its Xinjiang province get much assistance from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. To this extent India’s and China’s interest is the same. But we have to be watchful about what China actually does there, as we have difficulties with Chinese activities in other neighbouring countries.

Time was when the US used to criticise this country for not helping it to overcome its biggest strategic problem, Afghanistan, by settling all its numerous disputes with Pakistan and letting America leave after settling the Afghan imbroglio. Later, however, Washington welcomed India's “larger footprint” in Afghanistan. For it saw how popular India and Indians were there because this country was concentrating on Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development, building its parliament, university and other institutions and providing electricity to even its remote villages. Altogether, India has invested two billion dollars in Afghanistan. It has also trained Afghan military officers in Delhi, not Kabul.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi at a meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. — PTI

Assam appears to have become the target of organisations like Al Qaeda and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), chief minister Tarun Gogoi said as he asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday to take up the issue with neighbouring countries for coordinated action.

This was conveyed by Mr Gogoi when he met Mr Modi here.

“Of late, Assam appears to have been targeted by fundamentalist organisations like Al Qaeda. Some operatives having links with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were recently arrested in Assam,” Mr Gogoi was quoted as saying in a an official release.

Taking up the problem of militancy and threat from fundamentalist organisations, Mr Gogoi made a plea to Mr Modi to take up the matter with neighbouring countries at appropriate levels for sharing of intelligence and coordinated action.

“There should be similar mechanism at the interstate level for West Bengal and north-eastern states so that issues of jurisdiction do not come in the way of dealing with insurgency and militancy,” the release said.

Mr Gogoi also met home minister Rajnath Singh and later told reporters that jehadi activities were going on in the state.

The chief minister also said his government may hand over the probe of the Barpeta case, in which six persons were arrested in connection with the October 2 blast in Burdwan.

The Bandhua Mukti Morcha filed cases against Mr Satyarthi in 1996 for usurping its property and working against its interests. This case is still being heard in a Delhi court. The Norwegian Nobel Committee did not do due diligence.

The Nobel Peace Prize cashes in on the brand value of other Nobel Prizes, which are awards for professional merit and outstanding contributions to physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics. These awards are administered by the Royal Swedish Academy for Sciences and the Karolinska Institute. According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the peace prize was to be specifically awarded to the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This was the yardstick used to deny Mahatma Gandhi the prize.

It also is administered very differently. Alfred Nobel stipulated that the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee be five retired members of the Storting, the Norwegian Parliament, and be directly “appointed” by it. Thus, a country that is an active member of Nato, the most militarily engaged alliance of the Western world, awards them. The award no longer has any criteria, save consideration that it serves a certain political agenda.

It is quite clear that both Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi have done nothing for world peace. But both have served their nations in other ways. They have embarrassed the ruling elite by highlighting the inequities within the systems they preside over. They have made them alive to the essential realities of their countries and the jobs on hand. The number of child workers in India is in the millions.

Ms Yousafzai’s struggle to extend education to Pakistani girls, frowned upon by radical Islamists, is well known.

Now just 17, Ms Yousafzai became a symbolic and primetime victim of the religious extremism being espoused by the US’ former allies, the Taliban being foremost among them. It all makes a good story, though it is also very obviously a contrived one, unless we swallow hook, line and sinker the legend that she began writing a blog at the age of 12 and her ambitious father and some superb huckstering by Western journalists like Christina Lamb had little to do with it?

I wouldn’t know much about Ms Yousafzai, but Kailash Satyarthi I know personally. I first met him in the early 1980s when he was an aide to Swami Agnivesh who was leading a heroic struggle to liberate bonded labour, then an endemic practice in India. The story of Swami Agnivesh’s Bandhua Mukti Morcha (BMM) is the stuff of legends. BMM activists, most notably Swami Agnivesh and increasingly Mr Satyarthi, waged a relentless guerilla struggle to free bonded labour from enforced servitude in brick kilns, stone quarries, carpet and dhurrie factories, and wherever the cycle of usurious interests made loans impossible to repay and hence condemned the borrower to perpetual servitude. The Supreme Court of India took notice of this and in a landmark judgment forced the enactment of laws to free bonded labour and to stipulate minimum physical conditions in all workplaces for unorganised labour.

It was during this campaign to liberate bonded labourers that Swami Agnivesh noticed the number of children in servitude, serving out time in often hard labour for the debts of their parents. The carpet and dhurrie weaving cottage industries preferred to employ children because their more nimble fingers were better suited for the intricate and repetitive process of knotting coloured strands of fibre into the pattern on the loom. But not all these children were bonded. Most of them were, in fact, working for fairly decent wages to mitigate the economic circumstances of the family.

But as Swami Agnivesh puts it: “A child never works long hours everyday voluntarily. There is a compulsion to do so. Even if it is due to economic reasons, it is forced on the child.” This too, therefore, was deemed by the BMM as bonded labour. Little did he realise then that it would one day become a major favourite with Western funding agencies such as the Hague-based Novib, the London-based Christian Aid and the Washington-based Bread for the World. The narrow funding stream was soon a torrent.

But the problem was that Swami Agnivesh is a man of many parts. He is also nobody’s man. A political agitator and activist, he is active in seeking reform in the Arya Samaj. He is a staunch nationalist and has often tended to put what he perceived to be national interest above all else. He balked at foreign attempts to write the BMM agenda. This was when Mr Satyarthi began to sense an opportunity to seek a new ground entirely for himself.

A little more than a year after it was broached, a new multilateral bank in Asia — the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — was born last week in Beijing, signalling in the process the failure of hectic lobbying by the United States against the move. The bank has 21 signatory- countries, with India being the only major backer apart from China; the rest are the smaller economies of Asia. The event was not without its share of drama as Australia, Indonesia and South Korea pulled out apparently under pressure from the U.S. Yet, it may not have been easy for them, as statements from some of their diplomats show. The three countries, which have extensive trade dealings with China, seem to be still torn between safeguarding their relations with the Asian giant and not displeasing the U.S. It should surprise no one if they decide to take the plunge after watching from the sidelines how the bank develops. The AIIB, along with the other new China-based institution, the BRICS Bank, represents the first major challenge to the U.S.-led global economic order and the 70-year uncontested reign of the Bretton Woods twins. In a way, the IMF and the World Bank have only themselves to blame if they find their dominance under threat, because the seeds of the new bank sprouted from either their inability or unwillingness, or both, to meet the growing funding needs of Asia.

As per the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) assessment, Asia needs on an average $800 billion of investment in infrastructure annually between now and 2020. Against this, the ADB, dominated by Japan which is also a founding member, lends no more than $10 billion a year for infrastructure. With the American-dominated World Bank and the Europe-led IMF also remaining hamstrung, the need for a multilateral body to finance the growth region of the world was real. The ADB has been cautious in its comments, and understandably so; it can do with support for infrastructure lending, yet needs to safeguard its turf. India, with its participation, has lent heft to the AIIB, which would otherwise have been seen as a Chinese bank backed by membership from lightweight countries of the region. India, which will be the second largest shareholder in the bank, should work with China to ensure that best practices are followed in projects for procurement and materials and in terms of labour and environmental standards. While there is without doubt a geo-political angle to the founding of the bank — which is natural, given that the economic balance of power is shifting to Asia — care should be taken to ensure that it does not become the driving factor in the bank’s functioning. The bank should do what it has been founded for — fund Asia’s infrastructure.

Since Independence, the nation has grown up with the knowledge and belief that its armed forces are pillars of strength and symbolize probity and the spirit of sacrifice. This belief is reflected in polls conducted from time to time, and is strengthened when citizens see men and women in uniform risking their lives to save people during natural disasters like the one that struck Uttarakhand in June this year. From this comfort zone to be exposed to the events of the last year culminating in the present must have left them not only disoriented but also hopelessly confused.

…civil-military relations in India, in which the polity has kept the Indian military at more than an arm’s length, preferring to deal with it through the all-powerful bureaucracy, this should have set alarm bells ringing.

To briefly recapitulate, the former army chief, V.K. Singh, completed his tenure at the end of May 2012 on the basis of his age in the record books. His appeal to the defence minister to have the age corrected was turned down. Had it been otherwise, not only would his tenure have been extended, but as claimed by some it would have upset an apparently well-crafted succession plan. The successor reportedly enjoyed high contacts within the civilian leadership and enjoyed its support. In a dubious first in the history of the armed forces, a serving army chief then approached the Supreme Court for relief, but was turned down.

During this unholy phase when a serving army chief and the government were at odds, a few strange happenings came to light. It transpired that Singh had been offered a bribe by a retired officer to facilitate the induction of sub-standard trucks being produced by Bharat Earth Movers Limited, a defence undertaking. In spite of bringing this to the notice of the defence minister, no action was taken. Then, in two successive months, a national daily published reports, one claiming that the chief had set up a Technical Support Division within the military intelligence that was snooping on the communications of defence ministry officials and the defence minister. The ministry of defence is reportedly investigating the matter. The next report — more damaging than the first — claimed that some army units had moved suspiciously towards Delhi on the very day the army chief had gone to court. The hint of coercive tactics without using the dreaded word, coup, was apparent. This was denied by the defence ministry.

Whatever may have been the facts, a perception had been created that here was a serving army chief who was not averse to resorting to unconventional and even unconstitutional means. In the context of civil-military relations in India, in which the polity has kept the Indian military at more than an arm’s length, preferring to deal with it through the all-powerful bureaucracy, this should have set alarm bells ringing.

So grave were these allegations and their impact on the integrity of a serving chief and, consequently, on the morale of the armed forces that it was incumbent on the government to act in haste and get to the bottom of the allegations with the help of a high-level, independent investigation to clean the Augean stables. This would have had the following salutary effects. First, the nation would have been taken into confidence on precisely what the truth was. Next, wrongdoing, wherever applicable, would have been identified and the perpetrators held accountable. Finally, a message would have been sent to the armed forces that favouritism in promotions, high-handedness, or political interference in the functioning of the army would not be tolerated. In short, a sad chapter in the annals of civil-military relations would have been nipped in the bud and the supremacy of civilian leadership over the military enhanced. If it were revealed that the former army chief was guilty, the price would have been worth the revelation. Equally, if it was established that there was no wrongdoing on his part, then he along with the institution deserved an apology.

Clearly there is scant realization that leadership in the armed forces is a multi-layered and multi-dimensional phenomenon and insult or injury to its leadership is as damaging as that against its rank and file.

On Jan, 04, 1990, a local Urdu newspaper, Aftab, published a press release issued by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, asking all Pandits to leave the Valley immediately. Al Safa, another local daily repeated the warning.These warnings were followed by Kalashnikov-wielding masked Jehadis carrying out military-type marches openly. Reports of killing of Kashmiri Pandits continued to pour in. Bomb explosions and sporadic firing by militants became a daily occurrence.

Explosive and inflammatory speeches being broadcast from the public address systems of the mosques became frequent. Thousands of audio cassettes, carrying similar propaganda, were played at numerous places in the Valley, in order to instill fear into the already terrified Kashmiri Pandit community. Recalling these events, the former Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Shri M M Khajooria says, “The mischief of the summer of 1989 started with serving notice to the prominent members of the minority community to quit Kashmir.

The letter said, ‘We order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed- we are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims, and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here’. The threatening note ended with a warning, ‘If you do not obey, we will start with your children. Kashmir Liberation, Zindabad.”1

These slogans, broadcast from the loud speakers of every mosque, numbering roughly 1100, exhorted the hysterical mobs to embark on Jehad.

They signaled the implementation of their intentions quite blatantly. M. L. Bhan of Khonmoh, Srinagar, a government employee, was killed on Jan 15, 1990. Baldev Raj Dutta, an operator in Lal chowk, Srinagar, was kidnapped on the same day. His dead body was found four days later, on Jan 19, 1990, at Nai Sarak, Srinagar.The body bore tell-tale marks of brutal torture.

Night of Jan, 19, 1990

The night witnessed macabre happenings, the like of which had not been witnessed by Kashmiri Pandits after the Afghan rule.Those that experienced the fear of that night are unlikely to forget it in their life time. For future generations, it will be a constant reminder of the brutality of Islamic radicals, who had chosen the timing very carefully. “Farooq Abdullah, whose government had all but seized to exist, resigned. Jagmohan arrived during the day to take charge as the Governor of the State.”2 He took over the charge of the Governor just the previous night at Jammu.He had made efforts to reach Srinagar during the previous day, but the plane had to return to Jammu from Pir Panjal Pass, due to extremely bad weather. Though curfew was imposed to restore some semblance of order, it had little effect. The mosque pulpits continued to be used to exhort people to defy curfew and join Jehad against the Pandits, while armed cadres of JKLF marched through the streets of the Valley, terrorizing them no end.

Sune Engel Rasmussen

October 28, 2014

Gizab residents gather to watch helicopters from the 82nd Airborne Division bringing supplies to Australian and Afghan soldiers and police. Photograph: LT Aaron Oldaker/Australian government department

When the people of Gizab district rose up and ousted their Taliban rulers four years ago, international forces touted the district as a success story of civil courage and a milestone in the decade-long war. But now the district in Uruzgan, central Afghanistan, is about to fall back under the control of the insurgents, according to officials and community leaders.

The insurgent offensive comes a year after international troops withdrew from Uruzgan, and as UK troops are closing their largest base in Helmand, another embattled province in the south. A month of intense fighting in Gizab has displaced up to 500 families, and Taliban fighters are forcing residents to provide them with food and transportation and threatening people to stop them cooperating with the government, elders from the area said.

“The Taliban are using people as shields and are firing on security forces from civilian houses,” said Haji Abdur Rab, head of Gizab’s development council.

Wedged into the top corner of Uruzgan province, Gizab lies about 62 miles north of Tarin Kot, the provincial capital. Roads leading here are unpaved, making the transfer of food and weapons and the evacuation of the wounded difficult. To add to the troubles, the national army only has three helicopters, one of which is currently defunct, to support Uruzgan and three other provinces. According to Colonel Rasul Kandahari, commander of the Afghan national army’s 4th brigade in Uruzgan, the helicopters have little capacity beyond airlifting bodies from the battlefield.The Taliban is gathering strength across Afghanistan: here an Afghan soldier walks over rubble at the scene of a suicide attack on a government compound in Ghazni.Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

After insurgents cut off all roads to the district capital, security forces now await air support from the government. So far, however, the unrest in Gizab has failed to trigger a reaction from Kabul.

Estimates of casualties vary widely. While the police chief’s office in Tarin Kot claimed only a couple of people had been wounded and killed, the provincial governor, Amanullah Khan Timuri, said non-civilian casualties had reached 70, distributed equally on each side.

A western official familiar with security in the region, who is not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said Gizab was the most insecure district of Uruzgan. More than a third of clashes in Gizab this year have reportedly occurred within the past month.

The battle for Gizab will vex western military leaders, who pinned great hopes on the district. In 2010 American and Australian special forces supported a revolt of a few hundred people against the Taliban, as part of a declared effort to support bottom-up counter-insurgency. The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) trumpeted the uprising as an example of a successful “village stability operation”, designed to encourage ordinary Afghans to wrest power from the Taliban.

A veterinarian prepares medicine for sick animals during a veterinarian assistance project in Gizab district. Photograph: US Department of Defense

“The success with village stability in Gizab is a great example for the surrounding villages,” Isaf said in 2010.

Director General of Inter Services Public Relations, Asim Saleem Bajwa (R) answering to the Chinese media

The Director General of the Inter Services Public Relations of the Pakistani military establishment, Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, visited China from 14-18 October 2014. A statement made by this Pakistani officer that was reported by the Chinese media is of significance – “Pakistan takes enemies of China as our own enemies. We fight against Taliban; we fight even more vigorously against any enemy of China. That is how much we love the Chinese brother”. The statement sure has more to it than just mere familial ties and sibling bonding.

After Pakistan voted to grant China a seat in the United Nations, the Chinese withdrew the disputed maps in January 1962, agreeing to enter border talks in March.

That the matter was quoted in the Chinese media as it was ostensibly stated, it subtly indicates a concurrence of view by China. Is China conveying a message during this exchange of firing, across the Line of Control (LC) and the International Border, between India and Pakistan that it would stand by Pakistan? Around the same time, that is, 16/17 October 2014, it was reported in the Indian print media that China was closely studying this exchange of firing between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s diplomatic overtures to China commenced in earnest when it noted the rising belligerence between India and China in the period prior to the 1962 conflict between these two countries.

In 1959 the Pakistani government became concerned over Chinese maps that showed areas the Pakistanis considered their own as part of China. Seeing its aggressive stance on the issue of the boundary dispute with India, Pakistan did not want to take any chances. In 1961 Ayub Khan sent a formal note to China, to which there was no reply. It is thought that the Chinese might not have been motivated to negotiate with Pakistan because of Pakistan’s relations with India.

After Pakistan voted to grant China a seat in the United Nations, the Chinese withdrew the disputed maps in January 1962, agreeing to enter border talks in March. Negotiations between the nations officially began on October 13, 1962 and resulted in an Agreement being signed on 2 March 1963 by foreign ministers Chen Yi of China and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan.

Soon after the India-China war, Pakistan saw an opportunity to wrest Kashmir from what it perceived a weak India, by force, and it launched a war in 1965.

The agreement resulted in China withdrawing from about 750 square miles (1942 sq km) of territory, and Pakistan withdrawing its claim to about 2,050 square miles (5309 sq km) of territory that, in practice, it neither occupied nor administered.

Under this Agreement, Pakistan handed over 5180 sq km of territory of the region of Shashgam Valley north of the Karakoram Range of Jammu & Kashmir to China. China readily accepted it, however, it did include a clause that the Agreement would be renegotiated on the final resolution of the J&K dispute – “the two parties agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the government of the peoples’ republic of China on the boundary, as described in Article II of the present agreement of Kashmir, so as to sign a boundary treaty to replace the present agreement.”

Few scenarios worry the U.S. and its allies more than the prospect of the rise of the Islamic State on the war-battered landscape of northwest Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. In Pakistan, six top Taliban commanders have pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Just over the border from Afghanistan, another army is also trying to figure out how to handle the Taliban. Pakistan's military is conducting a big operation to crush militants in the mountains of the tribal belt. Today the army said it killed 33 Taliban and destroyed some hideouts.

NPR's Philip Reeves says there's growing concern in Pakistan about whether conflicts elsewhere in the world are stoking up their own militants.

PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: Professor Ajmal Khan knows a lot more than most about the Pakistani Taliban. He was their hostage for four years. He was freed two months back. Now he's back at work as vice chancellor of the Islamia College University in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar. Khan was still in captivity when Pakistan's army unleashed its latest major offensive against the Taliban. The army set out to crush the militants in North Waziristan then made sanctuary in the mountains bordering Afghanistan. The professor was in the thick of it.

AJMAL KHAN: It was a day to day living because you could never figure out what would hit you. The helicopters, they used to have their raids and the jet fighters used to have their raids.

REEVES: Pakistan's military claims it's wiped out more than a 1,100 militants since the offensive began in June. That's impossible to verify, as the authorities deny journalists access to the war zone. Many militant are thought to have escaped, yet Khan says the offensive is disrupting the Taliban.

KHAN: Their dens have been destroyed. Their hideouts have been destroyed. They cannot assemble immediately like they used to.

REEVES: But, Khan adds...

KHAN: You never know. They could just be united any minute. You can't just say that they've withered away. No, I don't think so.

REEVES: The Pakistani Taliban's problems are made worse by several big splits among its leadership. The other day, six Taliban commanders transferred their allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Zahid Hussain, author of books about militants in Pakistan, thinks such expressions of support of for Islamic State or, IS, as he calls it, are significant.

ZAHID HUSSAIN: It is quite a dangerous development for the militants in Pakistan who have been fighting for long. IS seems to be much more attractive now

REEVES: Hussain thinks the danger's not that the Islamic State will bring their war to Pakistan and start seizing territory - unlike in Iraq and Syria, Pakistan's government and security services haven't crumbled. What matters is the influence the Islamic State's having on Pakistan's sectarian conflict. That Sunni-Shia conflict's killed thousands of Pakistanis over the last few decades. The Islamic State's an explicitly sectarian entity, a Sunni Muslim force aligned against Shia enemies. Pakistan has Sunni groups that regularly carry out deadly attacks against the country's Shia minority.

(SOUNDBITE OF RALLY)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken, shouting).

Sectarianism in Pakistan arouses deep emotions. This is a cleric at a rally by a leading Sunni sectarian party, talking about neighboring Iran, which is Shia. The party's leader, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, says his organization is peaceful and doesn't want the Islamic State in Pakistan, but he says Sunnis in Pakistan are impacted by what's happening to Sunnis in Iraq and Syria.

Director General of Inter Services Public Relations, Asim Saleem Bajwa (R) answering to the Chinese media

The Director General of the Inter Services Public Relations of the Pakistani military establishment, Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, visited China from 14-18 October 2014. A statement made by this Pakistani officer that was reported by the Chinese media is of significance – “Pakistan takes enemies of China as our own enemies. We fight against Taliban; we fight even more vigorously against any enemy of China. That is how much we love the Chinese brother”. The statement sure has more to it than just mere familial ties and sibling bonding.

After Pakistan voted to grant China a seat in the United Nations, the Chinese withdrew the disputed maps in January 1962, agreeing to enter border talks in March.

That the matter was quoted in the Chinese media as it was ostensibly stated, it subtly indicates a concurrence of view by China. Is China conveying a message during this exchange of firing, across the Line of Control (LC) and the International Border, between India and Pakistan that it would stand by Pakistan? Around the same time, that is, 16/17 October 2014, it was reported in the Indian print media that China was closely studying this exchange of firing between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s diplomatic overtures to China commenced in earnest when it noted the rising belligerence between India and China in the period prior to the 1962 conflict between these two countries.

In 1959 the Pakistani government became concerned over Chinese maps that showed areas the Pakistanis considered their own as part of China. Seeing its aggressive stance on the issue of the boundary dispute with India, Pakistan did not want to take any chances. In 1961 Ayub Khan sent a formal note to China, to which there was no reply. It is thought that the Chinese might not have been motivated to negotiate with Pakistan because of Pakistan’s relations with India.

After Pakistan voted to grant China a seat in the United Nations, the Chinese withdrew the disputed maps in January 1962, agreeing to enter border talks in March. Negotiations between the nations officially began on October 13, 1962 and resulted in an Agreement being signed on 2 March 1963 by foreign ministers Chen Yi of China and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan.

Soon after the India-China war, Pakistan saw an opportunity to wrest Kashmir from what it perceived a weak India, by force, and it launched a war in 1965.

The agreement resulted in China withdrawing from about 750 square miles (1942 sq km) of territory, and Pakistan withdrawing its claim to about 2,050 square miles (5309 sq km) of territory that, in practice, it neither occupied nor administered.

Under this Agreement, Pakistan handed over 5180 sq km of territory of the region of Shashgam Valley north of the Karakoram Range of Jammu & Kashmir to China. China readily accepted it, however, it did include a clause that the Agreement would be renegotiated on the final resolution of the J&K dispute – “the two parties agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the government of the peoples’ republic of China on the boundary, as described in Article II of the present agreement of Kashmir, so as to sign a boundary treaty to replace the present agreement.”

With the death of Gholam Azam a painful and bloody chapter in Bangladesh’s history has been laid to rest. The erstwhile Ameer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist party in Bangladesh, died as a prisoner in Dhaka’s Medical University Hospital on Oct 23, 2014 at the age of 92.

He was serving a 90 year sentence following his conviction for war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. Azam is the second war criminal to die in a hospital prison ward after the death of convicted war criminal Abdul Alim. Earlier, a convicted war criminal Quader Mollah, also from the Jamaat, was sentenced to death and executed.

War criminal Azams’ death has provoked demonstrations in his home district of Brahmanbaria where people have demanded that his body not be allowed to be buried there. Secular and progressive Bangladeshi organizations have called for his body to be sent to Pakistan for burial, since the soil of Bangladesh was soaked with the “sacred blood of martyrs and should not be polluted with the body of a traitor”.

Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971 remains an emotive issue. Azam’s role as a staunch supporter of Pakistan made him a top traitor in Bangladeshi eyes. The memory of millions killed and tortured, the agony of hundreds of thousands of women raped by Pakistani officers and soldiers and the travails of millions of refugees still remains a raw wound in the collective public memory in Bangladesh. Azam, his cohorts and organizations helped and took part in these atrocities, as collaborators of the Pakistani Army.

Azam campaigned extensively against Bangladesh’s freedom struggle and continued his ideological movement for a united Pakistan even after 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir) were involved in Azam’s campaign. These organizations had played important roles in forming the Peace Committees and other pro-Pakistani collaborator outfits, like the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. Azam and his collaborators called the freedom fighters “miscreants”, “Indian agents” and “malaun” (a pejorative word used against Hindus) and “infiltrators”.

Azam became the symbol of war crimes in Bangladesh and the leading collaborator in one of the world’s worst genocide. In one of the most despicable acts of revenge, Azam masterminded the killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals by the Pakistani Army and his local collaborators on Dec 14, 1971 when Pakistan was on the verge of defeat and sought to deprive a newly independent Bangladesh of its leading intellectuals. The government of newly independent Bangladesh banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and cancelled Azam’s citizenship. Azam fled to Pakistan.

He campaigned until 1973 to build public opinion in the Islamic world to prevent the recognition of Bangladesh as an independent nation. He visited Saudi Arabia in March 1975 and told King Faisal that Hindus had captured East Pakistan, killed Muslims, burnt the holy Quran, destroyed mosques and converted them into temples. By purveying such blatant lies, Azam collected funds from the Middle East for rebuilding mosques and madrassas.

After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, in August 1975, Bangladesh went through a turbulent political phase which led to General Zia-ur-Rahman usurping power. As president, Zia allowed Azam to return to Bangladesh on a Pakistani passport. Zia’s objective was to promote Islamization and roll back the secular tradition of the Liberation War and Bangladesh’s constitution as an independent nation.

The end of the mass line campaign’s second phase this month provides an opportunity to understand more clearly what has been happening politically at the grassroots level in China over the last year. The Chinese press has reported at length on the crackdown against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres’ extravagances in recent months, including the ban on banquets and cadres’ cars. [1]The mass line campaign indeed goes hand-in-hand with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive and his efforts to strengthen the CCP. The former provides the ideological background and information to fuel the latter. This article will examine how this campaign has affected the careers of average Party officials and to what extent it will develop into new tools of control for the Party (see also China Brief, August 9, 2013).

The Campaign by the Numbers

Following the adoption of the “Opinion Regarding the In-Depth Party-Wide Implementation of the Party’s Mass Line Education and Practice Campaign” in May 2013, the mass line campaign officially started on June 18, 2013 (Mass Line Office, May 9, 2013). In his statement marking the beginning of the campaign, Xi Jinping explained that its major goals were to make the government more accessible to the public and to eradicate the “four [bad] work styles”—formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance (Xinhua,June 19, 2013). After the first phase focused on provincial-level government and Party units, a second phase began this January targeting lower-level units (Xinhua, January 23). The second phase officially ended in September and Xi Jinping gave a cloture speech on October 8 calling for the spirit of the campaign to endure after its end (Xinhua, October 9). The CCP is now in the process of assessing the one-year campaign and considering how best to ensure its legacy and to institutionalize control mechanisms over its cadres.

The official results of the campaign are astonishing both in terms of administrative simplification and the comprehensive crackdown on cadres’ extravagance (Xinhua, October 7). According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Party organization for investigations: The number of official meetings has been reduced by 586,000, or nearly 25 percent; 162,629 phantom contracts (kongxiang dajun) have been removed from the government’s payroll; the construction of 2,580 unnecessary official buildings was stopped; and 200,000 officials were punished after uncovering 386,000 cases of unjust implementation of public policies regarding the forced demolition of homes and medical care, among others. Overall, public expenditures on official receptions as well as cadres’ vehicles and overseas trips were cut by 25.5 percent, or RMB 53 billion ($8.7 billion).

Concerning the officials themselves, nearly 8,200 were punished for using public funds to pay for gifts or entertainment. More than 74,000 Party cadres have been punished for their bad “work style.” Also, 63,000 officials have been found to serve in parallel positions within a company and have been ordered to quit. If these numbers are accurate, the campaign must be impacting officials’ daily lives and career prospects.

Putting Pressure on Cadres

One of the key enforcement tools of the campaign was the establishment of self-criticism sessions, called “democratic meetings,” in the different units of the Party-State. What the officials reported on themselves, their superiors and colleagues was duly recorded by supervisory bodies. Supervisory teams, controlled by the newly formed “democratic meetings leading small groups” and constituted of leading party cadres from the respective administrative levels, were charged with overseeing the implementation of the campaign. During the first phase, 45 teams, made up of provincial-level cadres, were sent by the central government to follow how the meetings were carried out at the provincial level (Southern Weekend, July 5, 2013). At the beginning of the second phase, teams were sent to every city and county (People’s Daily, January 24). One provincial team leader told the author that the supervisory teams now have until February 2015 to draft their final reports. The “democratic meetings” are not supposed to stop with the end of the campaign and they will be under the control of the local Party organs and the democratic meetings leading small groups (Author’s interview, Beijing, October 10).

While some cadres presented the meetings of the first phase of the campaign as highly superficial, Chinese media reports have suggested the meetings became more consequential during the second phase, sometimes leaving cadres highly emotional (New York Times, December 20, 2013; Henan Business Daily, June 18). It remains extremely difficult to assess the level of honesty of the officials during the meetings and the actual results. Still, in the short term these meetings and the campaign more broadly seem to have effectively put pressure on cadres. There were even reports of suicides and early retirement among officials due to the severity of the campaign (South China Morning Post, July 9).

China recently expanded Woody Island’s runway, which may help support a future ADIZ in the South China Sea. (Credit: Global Times)

The expansion of a military airstrip and high-level visit from China’s naval chief this month have put a small island in the middle of the South China Sea back in the international media limelight (Xinhua, October 7; Global Times, October 16). Woody Island, known in Chinese as “Yongxing (Eternal Prosperity) Island,” is an important part of China’s territorial strategy in the South China Sea. As China’s largest occupied feature in the South China Sea and one of only a handful of islands large enough for an airstrip and other facilities, Woody Island serves as a home to Chinese troops and civilian researchers.

Woody Island now hosts an airstrip nearly as long as Lingshui, an important Chinese air base on Hainan. China likely lengthened the island’s airstrip in preparation for basing fighters, most likely J-11s, and more heavily laden military aircraft in order to better project air power and further press its territorial claims in the South China Sea. [1] This enhanced military capability would be well positioned to support a future Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in this strategically important body of water, if China decided to escalate its territorial dispute like it did with Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands last November (see also China Brief, December 5, 2013).

Even more important than its size is Woody Island’s location, as many of China’s infamous “assertive” episodes over the last decade have centered upon it. The island is located a mere 100 nautical miles (nm) south of where the U.S. Navy’s P-8 Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) Collection aircraft was harassed by a heavily armed Chinese Naval Aviation J-11BH on August 19. A near collision between the USS Cowpensand a Chinese warship occurred about 100 nm north of Woody Island in December 2013 (Global Times, December 12, 2013). And the 2001 EP-3 incident, involving the death of a Chinese pilot and detainment of a U.S. crew after making an emergency landing at Lingshui, also occurred nearby as well.

Woody Island’s runway, now expanded by an additional 400 meters, will likely play an increased role in supporting China’s efforts to deter U.S. surveillance activities in the South China Sea, and a possible future ADIZ. The longer runway will allow a wider variety of Chinese fighter jets and bombers to use the island, including those carrying larger loads of fuel and weapons, such as the YJ-8 anti-ship missile. Permanent basing of a small force of fighter jets would allow prompt interception of U.S. surveillance aircraft, reflecting China’s warnings to Washington to cease ELINT collection patrols (Chinese Ministry of Defense, August 28). Most of China’s military aircraft could now use the airstrip without any issues, but from an organizational and strategic perspective, the PLA Naval Aviation’s complement of JH-7 fighter-bombers (9th Air Division 92098) and two J-11BHs (8th Naval Aviation Division 92913) makes the most sense due to their respective anti-ship role and extended range (Global Times, September 3; Military Balance 2014, IISS, February, pp. 236–238).

As argued previously in China Brief by this author, a major consideration for China’s fighter acquisition and basing is increasing the PLA’s loiter capabilities over areas claimed as part of Chinese territory (see also China Brief, October 10, 2013). The expanded runway will allow for longer-range patrols by Chinese aircraft to support Beijing’s efforts to press its claims of disputed territory. Similarly, the larger patrol vessels China is currently building will allow longer time on station in sensitive areas, and its man-made island building projects further south—such as on Fiery Cross Reef—will allow the permanent stationing of troops on Chinese-held territory in the South China Sea. Merely showing up is often more than half the battle for legitimacy in such disputes, and China is attempting to “be there” on land, sea and air.

Enforcement of a South China Sea ADIZ, which was hinted at by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson in November 2013, would be contingent upon the ability to promptly intercept interloping aircraft (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 27, 2013). Shenyang J-11s, if based at Woody Island, would have comprehensive coverage of China’s nine-dash line claim. Forward basing at Woody Island would give Chinese aircraft additional range and faster response time than aircraft flying from Hainan or Guangdong province. By extending the “range bubble” out from the mainland and Hainan Island, a South China Sea ADIZ becomes much more realistic, however provocative it may be.

Reports of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Reports of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning’s death — or debilitating wounds — are greatly exaggerated. The flattop suffered some sort of steam leak that prompted her crew to stop at sea and conduct repairs before resuming operations. The news comes from Robert Beckhusen of War Is Boring, who relays a Sina.com story that Liaoning suffered a “steam explosion” following “a leak in ‘the machine oven compartment to the water pipes.’”

Beckhusen denies that PLA Navy leaders will decommission the flattop because of mechanical problems. (By raising the possibility, though, he seems to imply they might.) He does speculate that the accident will force the navy to relegate her to training duty.

Would an engineering casualty represent a setback unseen in the annals of naval history? Hardly. All sea services have been there, done that, and will likely find themselves there again. It’s doubtful such travails will induce PLA Navy officials to overreact, demoting Liaoning from whatever plans they have in mind for her. China’s first aircraft carrier is probably destined to serve as a training platform in any event — a ship used to groom China’s first generation of naval aviators, flight-deck crewmen, and air-group commanders. She will remain such despite minor hardware problems belowdecks.

Indeed, if suffering zero engineering casualties were the standard for maritime competence, the briny main would be empty of shipping. Think about what going to sea involves. A warship is a metal box largely encased in an environment hostile to metal — namely seawater and salt air. And it’s a box packed with machinery, flammables and explosives of various sorts, and human bodies. In such surroundings, rare is the seaman without a hair-raising tale to tell about fires or floods, equipment failures, and sundry mishaps.

I could spin a few such yarns myself. One involves a pipe springing a pinhole leak. And spraying fuel. On a steaming boiler. While crewmen are loading ammunition. At anchor. In rough weather. And that was a good-luck ship for the most part. Murphy’s Law — a.k.a. s*#t happens — is an iron law of marine engineering, and of seafaring writ large. When it does happen, you fix the damage, learn whatever lessons there are to learn, and move on.

Anyway. There must be translation problems with the Sina.com story, judging from Beckhusen’s account. What an “oven compartment” is, for example, heaven only knows. Modern warships carry ovens mainly to prepare meals. Yum. Oh, and electricians use specialized ovens from time to time to work on motors. I’d be gobsmacked if Liaoning’s main machinery spaces — the compartments where the main engines spin the propellers round and turbines generate electrical power — housed any.

Now, steamships use boilers to boil water and thus generate steam. The fires that boil the water blaze within bulky furnaces within the boilers. Many ships propelled by diesel engines, gas turbines, or nuclear reactors also use auxiliary steam. You’ll find boilers in the innards of many vessels, nuclear and conventional alike. Presumably the fine folks at Sina.com garbled the story of a problem with a boiler furnace. Or, more likely, of some lesser incident that released steam into Liaoning’s engineering spaces.

But again, let’s not extrapolate too much from a few sketchy facts. Yes, it’s doubtless true, as Beckhusen observes, that Liaoning, nee the Soviet carrier Varyag, was a “basket case” before Beijing purchased and Chinese shipwrights upgraded her. So what? The vessel was an unfinished hulk, left to decay when the Soviet Union fell. Few unfinished hulks are seaworthy or battleworthy. Yes, engineering woes have bedeviled vessels of Soviet build. The Soviet Navy never mastered certain maritime technologies. Nor was material upkeep uppermost among its priorities, judging from the rusty ships Soviet mariners used to steam around. That legacy of neglect probably lingers — no matter how expertly Chinese shipfitters refurbished the vessel.

If the China continues growing rapidly, the US will once again face a potential peer competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force.

(Editor’s Note: The following is the new concluding chapter of Dr. John J. Mearsheimer’s book The Tragedy of the Great Power Politics. A new, updated edition was released on April 7 and is available via Amazon.)

With the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union two years later, the United States emerged as the most powerful state on the planet. Many commentators said we are living in a unipolar world for the first time in history, which is another way of saying America is the only great power in the international system. If that statement is true, it makes little sense to talk about great-power politics, since there is just one great power.

But even if one believes, as I do, that China and Russia are great powers, they are still far weaker than the United States and in no position to challenge it in any meaningful way. Therefore, interactions among the great powers are not going to be nearly as prominent a feature of international politics as they were before 1989, when there were always two or more formidable great powers competing with each other.

To highlight this point, contrast the post–Cold War world with the first ninety years of the twentieth century, when the United States was deeply committed to containing potential peer competitors such as Wilhelmine Germany, imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. During that period, the United States fought two world wars and engaged with the Soviet Union in an intense security competition that spanned the globe.

After 1989, however, American policymakers hardly had to worry about fighting against rival great powers, and thus the United States was free to wage wars against minor powers without having to worry much about the actions of the other great powers. Indeed, it has fought six wars since the Cold War ended: Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001–present), Iraq again (2003–11), and Libya (2011). It has also been consumed with fighting terrorists across the globe since September 11, 2001. Not surprisingly, there has been little interest in great-power politics since the Soviet threat withered away.

The rise of China appears to be changing this situation, however, because this development has the potential to fundamentally alter the architecture of the international system. If the Chinese economy continues growing at a brisk clip in the next few decades, the United States will once again face a potential peer competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force. It is still an open question as to whether China’s economy will continue its spectacular rise or even continue growing at a more modest, but still impressive, rate. There are intelligent arguments on both sides of this debate, and it is hard to know who is right.

But if those who are bullish on China are correct, it will almost certainly be the most important geopolitical development of the twenty-first century, for China will be transformed into an enormously powerful country. The attendant question that will concern every maker of foreign policy and student of international politics is a simple but profound one: can China rise peacefully? The aim of this chapter is to answer that question.

To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory of international politics that explains how rising great powers are likely to act and how the other states in the system will react to them. We must rely on theory because many aspects of the future are unknown; we have few facts about the future. Thomas Hobbes put the point well: “The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all.” Thus, we must use theories to predict what is likely to transpire in world politics.

Offensive realism offers important insights into China’s rise. My argument in a nutshell is that if China continues to grow economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. The United States, however, will go to enormous lengths to prevent China from achieving regional hegemony. Most of Beijing’s neighbors, including India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia, and Vietnam, will join with the United States to contain Chinese power. The result will be an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. In short, China’s rise is unlikely to be tranquil.

It is important to emphasize that my focus is not on how China will behave in the immediate future, but instead on how it will act in the longer term, when it will be far more powerful than it is today. The fact is that present-day China does not possess significant military power; its military forces are inferior to those of the United States. Beijing would be making a huge mistake to pick a fight with the U.S. military nowadays. Contemporary China, in other words, is constrained by the global balance of power, which is clearly stacked in America’s favor. Among other advantages, the United States has many consequential allies around the world, while China has virtually none. But we are not concerned with that situation here. Instead, the focus is on a future world in which the balance of power has shifted sharply against the United States, where China controls much more relative power than it does today, and where China is in roughly the same economic and military league as the United States. In essence, we are talking about a world in which China is much less constrained than it is today.